Bitcointalk has been blocked in Russia because of Gambling advertisement

[fxpc]

if bitcoin is not approved in Russia (again, an assumption on my part) then it stands to reason the authorities will block any sites related to bitcoin such as the forum.

Your assumption is wrong. The Russian authorities advertise Bitcoin in controlled media 24/7. They also use Bitcoin and another crypto in their corruption schemes. For example, to steal natural gas and electrical power.

[coinlocket$]

While it should be illegal to avoid an ISP block you will be the effect on it if you are using not standard DNS servers.

Are you sure this is a block from the government? It seems very strange a block for a forum never eared about it.

[Debonaire217]

I saw, there is allot of Russians active on our forum, and I think it doesn't really affect their activities here from the time you've posted this OP. And with just a gambling advertisement, am I the only one who thinks that the reason is quite shallow for the government to block bitcointalk to their country?

We might not know, maybe their government doesn't see the future of their country with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and other crypto.

But I have a suspicion that the site doesn't really blocked this site, one way or another, they might just mistakenly did it.

[Latviand]

if bitcoin is not approved in Russia (again, an assumption on my part) then it stands to reason the authorities will block any sites related to bitcoin such as the forum.

Your assumption is wrong. The Russian authorities advertise Bitcoin in controlled media 24/7. They also use Bitcoin and another crypto in their corruption schemes. For example, to steal natural gas and electrical power.

They are just against on the gambling itself because Russia knows that bitcoin should be spent like that. Russia uses crypto in their economy, they know how to use and proper manipulate cryptocurrency so that they are against on gambling platform as it is a home for scammers. Russian Authorities are really strict when it comes to money and resources that's why they appreciate the true value and proper uses of crypto other than gambling. They banned gambling advertisement to stop the use of crypto in many gambling platforms but instead, they want them to use our own fiat and not crypto because crypto is only for necessary and important things like larger transactions and etc.

[turkandjaydee]

I'm pretty surprised by this news because I've seen many crypto projects based in Russia and even there are so many Russian people are involved in crypto projects.

I barely know that online gambling and betting are illegal in Russia and they are very strict about it. Even land-based gambling is legal in only 4 regional areas in that country.

I see many people here upset with their government's decision to ban this forum because of gambling ads. But from their government perspective, this is a very easy solution to keep their citizens from knowing about new gambling sites.

[pakhitheboss]

strange that they block a crypto forum all because there were gambling ads. they could just bann the gambling sites since online gambling is illegal to them. a message could be banning cryptocurrency 

Indeed. I think that the ads is not the reason why the blacklisted the forum.
In the end, they could just block the cryptocurrency ads not banning the whole forum.
Cryptocurrencies are what they do not want...

Banning the forum is not a good decision by them. I know there are many Russians here on the forum. They will not be liking this decision. I am sure you can still access the forum through VPN if you are in Russia. Anyone who is in Russia can tell us the exact situation.

They did not wanted cryptocurrency to be discussed by their citizens, it is not just gambling. Everyone know how big BTT is in crypto world.

Russian liking this decision or not is a completely different discussion but, the Russian crypto community is very pissed off after this ban that I am certain.

Through VPN you can easily get access to  any website banned by your country. The government might have forgotten this fact.

[Ryker1]

[snip]
Through VPN you can easily get access to  any website banned by your country. The government might have forgotten this fact.

Well, using a VPN is an easiest way to bypass the restriction of your country but in my part, I will not do that because once you are getting caught by the government officials, --you are for sure put in jail. Perhaps they need to read this online article that explained the gambling jurisdiction in Russia. https://www.gamblingsites.com/online-gambling-jurisdictions/russia/.
We can simply respect the restriction and rules have been implemented. Perhaps, their government was trying to protect their people of what they are thinking of regarding crypto or in Bitcoin.

[witcher_sense]

They did not wanted cryptocurrency to be discussed by their citizens, it is not just gambling. Everyone know how big BTT is in crypto world.

Russian liking this decision or not is a completely different discussion but, the Russian crypto community is very pissed off after this ban that I am certain.

Through VPN you can easily get access to  any website banned by your country. The government might have forgotten this fact.

There is no any punishment or special laws for those who accessing blocked websites through VPN or TOR-browser.  Especially, the government cannot prohibit you to download and run open source software like TOR. They only can filter traffic and that is all. So, they have nothing forgotten, but created some inconveniences for users who usually talk about gambling or bitcoin. This situation is a little annoying and creates precedent for banning crypto related forums in particular countries.

[swogerino]

While it should be illegal to avoid an ISP block you will be the effect on it if you are using not standard DNS servers.

Are you sure this is a block from the government? It seems very strange a block for a forum never eared about it.

This sounds strange to me too but TOR browser with minimum security settings applied without any VPN is enough to bypass the government restriction.If you don’t want to use TOR then you can opt only for a strong VPN which has privacy of users in mind.I use NordVPN and Hidemyass for these purposes.

[snipie]

It is ridiculous indeed, it is like putting a poster mocking Putin on a wall and the response is destroying that building, easy! The owner has to remove it himself or else mother Russia will do it for you. Crap...
BTW in the first place I don't think Russian are logging here without VPN or Tor, didn't they?

Yeah, but according to the VPN law of Russia, even they still use legal VPN, they will still not access bitcointalk. I don't know if it's applicable also in TOR. VPN providers are allowed in The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media or Roskomnadzor's blacklist so definitely, the forbidden websites can't be reached even using a legal VPN.

So I think it's time to say goodbye to our Russian friends here unless they find some other way to access the site legally.

Since when Russian use legal things? I believe at least 80% of hacked games, programs, apps are done by comrades! They will figure out a way if it is not already done. And it seems they are still logging here so
Another possibility cryptotalk paid authorities to do that?

[Balthazar]

Since when Russian use legal things? I believe at least 80% of hacked games, programs, apps are done by comrades!

There is a difference between hacking some protection and actually using this hack. I did this just for fun, just like many others.

BTW, I see that decision to ban Bitcointalk was made in 2071 and they banned it just right now. What a fast reaction!

It's ok for them. There were a lot of decisions which took years to be actually enforced, this happens especially when it's related to some "insignificant" matter. I suppose they gave this task to some clerk and he simply forgot about that. When somebody is resigning, he have to deal with such forgotten stuff before his job will be finally done. Just a speculation.

[mindrust]

[snip]
Through VPN you can easily get access to  any website banned by your country. The government might have forgotten this fact.

Well, using a VPN is an easiest way to bypass the restriction of your country but in my part, I will not do that because once you are getting caught by the government officials, --you are for sure put in jail. Perhaps they need to read this online article that explained the gambling jurisdiction in Russia. https://www.gamblingsites.com/online-gambling-jurisdictions/russia/.
We can simply respect the restriction and rules have been implemented. Perhaps, their government was trying to protect their people of what they are thinking of regarding crypto or in Bitcoin.

Can they jail you just because you visited a website? That's insane. I could understand it if it was CP or illegal drug trading but btt is nothing like that. Is online gambling really that dangerous in Russia?

While most people will find a way to reach btt without getting caught, the damage here is going to apply to the new people.

There will be a lot less new registrations from Russia because of that ban and the forum is already having hard times in that regard.

[Vishnu.Reang]

While it should be illegal to avoid an ISP block you will be the effect on it if you are using not standard DNS servers.

Are you sure this is a block from the government? It seems very strange a block for a forum never eared about it.

This sounds strange to me too but TOR browser with minimum security settings applied without any VPN is enough to bypass the government restriction.If you don’t want to use TOR then you can opt only for a strong VPN which has privacy of users in mind.I use NordVPN and Hidemyass for these purposes.

VPN is not 100% safe. I don't know much about NordVPN and Hidemyass, but the authoritarian governments have targeted these VPN providers recently. Even TOR doesn't offer 100% protection, but unless you are involving in any illegal stuff, I don't think that you have to worry. But the main problem with TOR is that it is too slow. For live betting, it can be very difficult to use TOR.

[yazher]

strange that they block a crypto forum all because there were gambling ads. they could just bann the gambling sites since online gambling is illegal to them. a message could be banning cryptocurrency 

This is how they deal with those scammers but unfortunately, Our whole community gets banned too. This is because they don't want to furthermore take any risk in this site. that's why the whole site was banned. we need to report those scammers as soon as possible to prevent this kind of thing to happen in the future. If I'm not mistaken, this site is also banned in China and now in Russia. this is not good news, there are lots of investors in those Countries.

[DabsPoorVersion]

strange that they block a crypto forum all because there were gambling ads. they could just bann the gambling sites since online gambling is illegal to them. a message could be banning cryptocurrency  

This is how they deal with those scammers but unfortunately, Our whole community gets banned too. This is because they don't want to furthermore take any risk in this site. that's why the whole site was banned. we need to report those scammers as soon as possible to prevent this kind of thing to happen in the future. If I'm not mistaken, this site is also banned in China and now in Russia. this is not good news, there are lots of investors in those Countries.

But banning the forum itself is unnecessary,

They can just ban every online gambling sites and not exactly the forum. Anyways, if this is how they solve the issues or how they dealt regarding this issues, we can't do anything about it.

Do you have a source where you read or heard about bitcointalk was banned in China?

[NavI_027]

But banning the forum itself is unnecessary,

Indeed, because this forum just serve as the platform for spreading news. It doesn't necessarily mean that it has sometjing to do with the shady stuffs started by scammers . Don't get me wrong, I really love how Russia put attention regarding such matter becuase this means that their government really cares. However I think they're overreacting already.

For this reason, do you guys think the Russian local board will be erased soon?

[snipie]

For this reason, do you guys think the Russian local board will be erased soon?

Nope will not happens, unless Putin ordered Trump to do it, which doesn't worth the effort 
And i doubt theymos will erase one of the most active local board, even today i count many posts, so no worries about our Russian friends!

[coinlocket$]

Nope will not happens, unless Putin ordered Trump to do it, which doesn't worth the effort 
And i doubt theymos will erase one of the most active local board, even today i count many posts, so no worries about our Russian friends!

Anyone from Russia?
Here in Italy is a common thing to use Google DNS or other free DNS like OpenDNS.

I think there will be the same and they even notice the "block" since it should be a DNS block from ISP.

[Danslip]

Thanks to VPN companies which will be a quick solution for bypassing the website filtering by governments. The Russia is not on the way to the absolute freedom for gamblers and this is understandable for former CCCP country. I am sure average gamblers will find a alternative option for accessing both Bitcointalk and gambling sites.

[Baoanhbmt]

I think some sites like YouTube would ban advertisements about online gambling too.However, this doesn't surprise me at all, it's a normal and ecpected thing for Russia. this ban happened but I don't think the Russian community here will be affected, they can always find a method to still access the site. Russians would still be able to access these sites since they have a lot of ways to cover ourselves like VPN and proxies.